For KRISHNA worshippers, the Brindavan region in Uttar Pradesh has for centuries been one of the main pilgrimage sites, a center for various cultic developments, and the focus of much Vaishnavite devotion. No prayer or song to Krishna will fail to mention it.
Although born in Mathura, Krishna spent his childhood and young life in the beautiful environs of Brindavan. There he encountered demons of various sorts and defeated them while just a child.
There he became the butter thief who stole from all the families in his neighborhood. And it was there that he dallied with the cowherd maidens, the GOPIS, choosing for his favorite RADHA. In Brin- davan a pilgrim can visit, walking barefoot, all the places of Krishna’s young life, and sense firsthand his divine presence.
CHAITANYA’s followers moved from Bengal to Brindavan to develop their philosophy and path.
The region also hosts a center for followers of VALLABHA.
Further reading: Cornelia Dimmitt and J. A. B. van Buitenen, Classical Hindu Mythology: A Reader in the Sanskrit Puranas (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1978); David L. Haberman, Journey through the Twelve Forests: An Encounter with Krishna (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1994); John Stratton Hawley and Shrivatsa Goswami, At Play with Krishna: Pilgrim- age Dramas from Brindavan (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1981).
Brunton, Paul
(1898–1981) British philosopher and spiritual teacherPaul Brunton was a spiritual writer and philoso- pher. His self-appointed task was to interpret what he learned in the East to Western audiences. He became a major figure in the spread of Eastern teachings in the West.
Brunton was born Raphael Hurst on Novem- ber 27, 1898, in London. (When he first became prominent as Brunton, he never explained why or when he had changed his name.) His mother died when he was young; his father remarried, and when he too died Brunton took care of his widow.
At age 16 he had a mystical experience, and by 1923 he was a member of a small bohemian group who were interested in spiritual matters. Recog- nizing that he had occult and clairvoyant powers, he joined the Spiritualist Society of Great Britain.
He married Karen Augusta Tottrup and a son was born in 1923. Barely three years later, Brunton and his wife divorced and she married another member of their circle who became a leader in the Anthroposophical Society, another esoteric orga- nization with roots in THEOSOPHY.
In 1930, Brunton traveled to India, where he met yogis and sages. His popular account, A Search in Secret India, introduced significant Indian teachers of the time, particularly MEHER
BABA and RAMANA MAHARSHI, to a Western audi- ence. His writings indicate that he practiced Ramana’s technique of meditating on the question
“Who am I?” and gained some degree of peace of mind and inner illumination from this discipline.
From 1934 to 1945, Brunton traveled even more extensively throughout the East and wrote six books about his experiences and his growing commitment to create a complete spiritual teach- ing for the modern world. Most of his writings
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were in the form of organized notes and apho- risms on a host of subjects, comprising more than 7,000 pages withheld for posthumous publica- tion. In his own words, these notes constituted an evolving new East-West philosophy that emerged to meet modern conditions. Brunton became a spiritual teacher and had followers who studied his ideas as well as his prophecies about world affairs.
During the last 20 years of his life, Brunton lived in Vevey, Switzerland, where he received students and inquirers. He died there of a massive cerebral hemorrhage on July 28, 1981.
In 1986, the Paul Brunton Philosophic Foun- dation (PBPF) was founded in Hector, New York, as a resource for those seeking spiritual under- standing. The foundation, under the leadership of Brunton’s son, Kenneth Thurston Hurst, com- pleted publication of the 16-volume compendium of his notebooks; instituted a program for donat- ing books to libraries, prisons, and world leaders;
and initiated a circulating library of published and unpublished writings by Brunton.
Further reading: Paul Brunton, A Hermit in the Hima- layas (London: Rider, 1936); ———, A Message from Arunachala (London: Rider, 1936); ———, The Note- books of Paul Brunton, 16 vols. (New York: Larson, 1984–89); ———, The Quest of the Overself (London:
Rider, 1937); ———, A Search in Secret India (London:
Rider & Company, 1934); ———, The Secret Path (London: Rider, 1935); J. Godwin, ed., Paul Brunton:
Essential Readings (Wellingborough, England: Crucible, 1990); K. T. Hurst, Paul Brunton: A Personal View (New York: Larson, 1989); J. M. Masson, My Father’s Guru:
A Journey through Spirituality and Disillusion (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1993).
Buddha
(c. 600 B.C.E.) founder of Buddhism The Buddha (the Awakened One) is revered among contemporary Hindus, who usually con- sider Buddhism to be another form of Hinduism.The flag of India even shows the Dharma Chakra
or “wheel of the law,” which is a Buddhist symbol.
The places where the Buddha was born (Lumbini in NEPAL), preached his first sermon (Sarnath near BENARES [Varanasi]), where he died (Vaishali), and where he reached enlightenment (Bodhgaya) are still visited as holy places by Hindus. Addition- ally, many old sites in India that preserve Buddhist sculpture and painting, such as Barhut, AJANTA, and ELLORA, are preserved by India and are very popular tourist places.
The story of the Buddha’s life is well known to Hindus. The prince Gautama was shielded as a child and young man from witnessing any sor- row: disease, old age, and death. The one time he managed to elude the protection of his family and went out to see the world, he was shocked by what he saw. With the permission of his wife, he left her and their son and ventured off as a renunciant. He tried many different paths includ- ing severe asceticism, which withered his body and nearly killed him. Eventually, he decided that neither severe asceticism nor a worldly life of indulgence was the true path, and he formulated his famous “Middle-Way.”
Finally, under the sacred Bodhi tree in Bodh- gaya, Gautama reached his enlightenment; he spent the rest of his life as an awakened teacher wishing to lead the ignorant out of the bonds of karma into a release from birth and rebirth.
Though recent and contemporary India looks upon the Buddha as an AVATAR and a holy being, in past eras Indian tradition witnessed great conflict between Buddhism and the Brahminical tradi- tion. Hindu saints of South India, both Shaivite and Vaishnavite, reviled the Buddhist monks and accused them of following a false path. The great BHAGAVATA PURANA, which depicts the 10 incarna- tions of VISHNU, shows Buddha as the ninth, but in this account he has gone to Earth to preach a creed designed to mislead the ASURAS, or antigods, and not to save humanity.
Further reading: Edward Conze, Buddhist Thought in India (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1982);
K 96 Buddha
Richard H. Robinson, The Buddhist Religion (Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 1986).
buddhi
Buddhi is a technical term in the SAMKHYA YOGA
system that refers to discriminative intellect. Ulti- mately, one seeks to calm the mind so that the discriminative intellect or buddhi will be able to discern the clear division between the self or soul and the whirling world of phenomena. This dis- cernment is a crucial step in the liberation of the self from the cycle of birth and rebirth. The buddhi is considered to have the greatest predominance of sattva (purity) of anything in existence. Ulti-
mately, however, liberation can occur only when buddhi, too, is transcended (in consciousness), as it too is part of the world of phenomena and, in its own way, a hindrance to the highest spiritual realization.
Further reading: S. N. Dasgupta, A History of Indian Phi- losophy. Vol. 1 (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1975); Gerald Larson and Ram Shankar Bhattacharya, Sankhya: A Dual- ist Tradition in Indian Philosophy, Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies. Vol. 4 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1987); ———, Classical Sankhya: An Interpretation of Its History and Meaning (Santa Barbara, Calif.: Ross/
Erikson, 1979); S. K. Saksena, Essays on Indian Philoso- phy (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1970).
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